Ventilating the interior of buildings is highly desirable and essential wherever living creatures or plants are being maintained. For example, the interior conditions must be controlled in buildings used for warehousing or industrial storage, for the raising of vegetables and plants or for raising livestock. For those buildings where livestock are being raised, proper interior ventilation is essential to the good heath of the livestock. During the winter, buildings will most likely be cool and damp if the building is located in the northern climates. In the summer, the interior of the building will likely be hot and humid. Ventilation is a process to control the temperature, humidity and gases within the building, and with controlled ventilation, a near ideal environment can be maintained by introducing outside air and properly controlling the heat and moisture of the air circulating within the building.
As air circulates throughout the interior of a building, the temperature of the air and the amount of water it carries may increase or decrease. One of the most effective ways of maintaining desirable conditions of the air inside of a building is to distribute fresh air from the exterior and mix it with the existing air within the building. In order to do this, the building must contain inlets that control the flow and distribution of the fresh air introduced into the building. The use of proper inlets is much more effective than using fans to blow air into the building. By the strategic placement of inlets of a proper design that utilize static pressure, the exterior air can be mixed with the interior air in a building to dilute stagnant pockets of either cold or hot air and dilute any toxic gases present within the building. In relatively large buildings, mixing by inlets may not be sufficient to produce the required air movement and in such a case, stir fans may be added for additional mixing of the air within the building. By providing the necessary velocity of air and movement within the building by proper use of air inlets, a more uniform environment from top to bottom and from the end of the building can be maintained.
There are known and used numerous designs of air inlet devices for mounting on the walls or ceiling of a building. These devices typically contain one or more moveable louvers the position of which can be changed by manual control cables. Some devices have louvers that operate automatically in response to the negative pressure supplied by exhaust fans. However, the design of known air inlet devices of the automatic type are typically designed for a given set of conditions and cannot be adjusted to accommodate different building designs and different static pressures. There is therefore a need for an improved air inlet device which can be adjusted to accommodate different static pressures and air flows within the building where the inlet device is installed. There is also a need for an improved air inlet device which when mounted in the wall or ceiling will direct the air upwardly toward the ceiling so that the colder incoming air is properly mixed with room air before dropping to the lower portions of the building where the animals confined in the building are situated, thus helping to prevent chilling of the animals.
The air ventilating device of the invention has a housing suitable for mounting in the wall or ceiling of a building. The housing is provided with an opening to the exterior of the building and a moveable louver is pivoted at the lower side of the opening with the louver extending upwardly so that the exterior air is directed upwardly toward the ceiling of the building. The louver extends beyond the lower pivot point and contains means for attaching weights of different sizes to the louver depending upon the static pressure within the building thereby allowing adjustment of the air flow in accordance with the static pressure.